Cherice Moralez, who was 14 at the time her high school teacher had sex with her, isn’t able to react to a Montana judge who sentenced the teacher to only 30 days in jail because the girl “was older than her years.” She killed herself shortly before her 17th birthday when the case became a criminal case.

Under state law, children younger than 16 cannot consent to sexual intercourse.

“I don’t care if she dressed provocatively. She was a 14-year-old and he was in a position of power,” Sheena Rice, who’s organizing a protest tomorrow, told the Billings Gazette.

“I think that people have in mind that this was some violent, forcible, horrible rape,” the judge told the newspaper. “It was horrible enough as it is just given her age, but it wasn’t this forcible beat-up rape.”

This afternoon, the judge apologized for the remarks, but not the sentence. “What I said is demeaning of all women, not what I believe and irrelevant to the sentencing,” Baugh said in a letter to the editor of the newspaper. “My apologies to all my fellow citizens.”

It’s not an unusual sentence by Minnesota standards given similar situations.

In one similar case, an Elk River teacher got five years probation for having sex with a student. He was convicted of criminal sexual behavior, but in that case, the student was 17, and testified about their affair.

About the blogger

Bob Collins has been with Minnesota Public Radio since 1992, emigrating to Minnesota from Massachusetts. He was senior editor of news in the ’90s, ran MPR’s political unit, created the MPR News regional website, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started the two most popular blogs in the history of MPR and every day laments that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.

NewsCut is a blog featuring observations about the news. It provides a forum for an online discussion and debate about events that might not typically make the front page. NewsCut posts are not news stories but reflections , observations, and debate.

The word rape — statutory or otherwise — was not in the charges of those listed. It’s a very interesting question, though. Rape is not sex, though the charges that were filed against them was criminal sexual conduct.

EmmyRae

I see. It’s hard not to wonder if using the word “rape” in the charges would have resulted in more serious consequences for the perpetrators in these cases.